Cust, Henry;
Njuguna, Rebecca;
Lépine, Aurélia;
The Power Team;
(2024)
How the Risk Premium for Condomless Sex Differs Between Women in Commercial and Transactional Sex? Evidence From Urban Cameroon.
SSRN: Amsterdam, Netherlands.
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Abstract
Female sex workers engaging in commercial sex can receive a premium for engaging in unprotected and other types of risky sex. Women engaging in transactional sex, defined as non-commercial sexual relationships motivated by the implicit assumption sex is exchanged for material support, are thought to share some of the same economic incentives as women in commercial sex, including that of the risk premium. We provide the first quatitative evidence of the risk premium in such relationships. Using a panel of up to six sex acts from an RCT stratified by FSWs and women in transactional sex in Cameroon, we estimate the premium attached to unprotected sex for both groups and investigate possible mechanisms for our findings. Our results show a premium of up to 30% for unprotected sex for FSWs in commercial sex, but a discount of up to 14% for women in transactional sex. We offer two explanations supported by qualitative findings, first, payment in transactional relationships are more complex than commercial relationships. Transactional relationships involve investments in trust that isn’t a negotiable price, meaning a portion of the value obtained from unprotected sex acts is unobserved and biases our results downwards. Second, women in transactional sex are less aware of their risk of HIV, therefore, failing to negotiate an adequate premium for such sex acts. Since it is estimated the number of women engaging in transactional sex is greater than FSWs across sub-Saharan Africa and that they have less knowledge and self-awareness about their risk of HIV, women in transactional sex should be considered an “key population” and helps explain the large disparity in HIV incidence in sub-Saharan Africa. Future research is needed into the economics of transactional relationships including the preferences and motivations of male partners in such relationships.
| Type: | Working / discussion paper |
|---|---|
| Title: | How the Risk Premium for Condomless Sex Differs Between Women in Commercial and Transactional Sex? Evidence From Urban Cameroon |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4765136 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | This version is the version of record. For information on re-use, please refer to the publisher’s terms and conditions. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Population Health Sciences > Institute for Global Health |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10192131 |
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